


Until There's Nothing Left

by Squeeb100



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Altered Mental States, BIG ONES, Dissociation, Gen, Hallucinations, Hurt Loki (Marvel), IT'S WHUMPTOBER and you know what that means bitches, Loki (Marvel) Has Issues, Loss of Identity, Mental Health Issues, Not in a sexy way, Overstimulation, Psychological Torture, Psychological Trauma, Self-Harm, Sensory Deprivation, Suicide Attempt, The Void, Torture, Whump, i think this falls over, is what this really is, it's just awful, like...major ones, none of this is remotely fun or sexy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-07
Updated: 2019-10-07
Packaged: 2020-11-26 15:09:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20932250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Squeeb100/pseuds/Squeeb100
Summary: The Void breaks Loki down to nothing and Thanos builds him anew.





	Until There's Nothing Left

**Author's Note:**

> Big old trigger warnings here:  
\- READ THE TAGS  
\- The stuff in here amounts essentially to sensory deprivation to the point of identity loss, then torture
> 
> Please be careful he hallucinates some pretty horrific stuff and if you are not Down to Clown with that it is ALL GOOD. stay safe.

In the end there was a burst of color and wild emotion and a two blurred faces, once familiar and now so, so far away. There was light from the Bifrost and Thor screamed when he let go and Loki thought that maybe this, at last, would be freedom.

The end was a maelstrom of dazzling light and chaotic sound, and then everything--the color, the screams, the pain--was gone.

***

Loki had expected to simply flicker out of existence. He wasn’t sure what it was exactly that he had imagined; maybe one moment there would be agony, and then there would be nothing. Instead, he felt a sharp lurch, like his soul coming loose but refusing to leave his body, and he dropped like a rock, screaming. 

Falling would be a less peaceful death than fading, but a death it would be regardless. Loki braced himself, squeezed his eyes shut, knowing that it would be over in moments, and waited to hit the hard, unyielding ground.

A ground that never rose to meet him.

He didn’t know how far he fell before he cautiously uncurled his body, loosened his fists. Nothing could possibly be this deep, and he thought that maybe he wasn’t falling. Maybe he was floating, and as soon as the thought crossed his mind he felt the sure grip of gravity falter and realized that he was in some state of exaggerated suspension. Maybe he  _ had _ died.

But he wasn’t  _ gone _ . Loki was, in fact, the least absent thing he was aware of in what seemed to be a very large, dark and empty space. It was as if he had remained, while everything else had faded up into the dazzling sky. The void had pulled at him as soon as he let go, tugging him gently toward assured rest, and he had allowed it to, and it had swallowed him, mind and body, into a sea of darkness.

He hadn’t expected Valhalla, but he had expected  _ something. _

Loki flexed his fingers experimentally, felt them move. His chest hurt from Thor pinning him to the Bifrost. Loki suddenly became purely and painfully aware that he still inhabited his body, and where he had been momentarily numb with shock rose the familiar wave of agony, constricting his lungs and restricting his breathing and he  _ screamed _ , a harsh sound in the silence, full of rage and confusion. He shrieked into the dark at how utterly unfair it all was, that the universe had seen it unfit to grant him even the basest of mercies, had ripped control from him so forcefully that even his decision to die was left unfulfilled. He doubted he had ever screamed so long or so loud in his life, and when he stopped it was only because his voice crackled, crackled, faltered.

Everything Loki had ever read about the void had ensured death. It was widely known that none who dropped into the empty space between the branches of Yggdrasil ever returned, and the reason for his continued existence eluded him. He’d been thrown out of alignment with the universe when he fell, because the Bifrost was a gateway and the gateway had shattered, energy reaching and expanding, seeking him out and thrusting him away from the realms. Perhaps experience could serve him--he’d walked the branches of the World Tree before without falling, and wondered if any sort of gateway existed nearby. But clawing at the air yielded no purchase, and hesitant tendrils of _seidr _reached on and on into gaping nothingness without coming across anything. He thrashed about for a moment in a last ditch attempt to feel something, hoping for a toe or an elbow to glance off some solid surface and allow him to orient himself, but there was nothing. He kicked out hard, like a frustrated infant trapped on its back, then let his body fall limp. 

“This is unfortunate,” he said to himself, and his voice was wrecked from the screaming.

***

It had already been an eternity. 

He’d been in the dark so long, and it was strange to think that earlier in the day he’d been king. Earlier in the day he’d tried to destroy Jotunheim, a fruitless conquest halted by his blundering older broth- by Thor. Loki realized at some point in his fall or float or whatever this fresh Hel was called that he was  _ crying _ , shuddering sobs that seemed ear-shatteringly loud in the silence, heartbreak that he had not yet allowed himself to face. One thousand years of  _ lies, _ and nothing to show for it. Thieving, lying parents raising one prince and one monster, one child who shone gold like the sun and the other a cast shadow, a walking disappointment, destined for failure the moment it blundered into a cold, unforgiving world. Loki felt contact against his face and flinched away reflexively until he realized that he’d brought his own hand up to wipe his eyes and took another great, shuddering sob. He cried like he never had before, except as an infant, a wretched, mindless whelp left to die by a race of monsters.  _ Worthless. _ Nothing. And Odin had stolen him away and lied about it, kept him, a pet Jotun that struggled for his amusement.

Even in the end, when he’d tried to do something right, he had failed. Thor had been angry. Odin had been disappointed. But Loki had almost  _ ended  _ one thousand years of war. And he’d been labeled a traitor, because even that had somehow been a mistake. Thor had attacked Jotunheim and been sent to Midgard to get cozy with a human girl and Loki, for the same offense, had been cast into the void to suffer alone.  
  


***

Loki thought absently that if this darkness ever released its hold on him, he’d like to write about his experience. There was far too little written about the void, and further study could prove fascinating. The thought was slippery, though, and he had trouble holding onto it, and spoke aloud to keep track of himself. He had noticed it happening more and more, the longer he’d been alone. His mind felt fuzzy around the edges, like a tapestry with just a few threads bound inadequately (not loose, but not tight, exactly), and there were stars dancing around him, bright pricks of light that he thought might be a result of dehydration. He was thirsty, and his throat hurt from screaming.

There was absolutely nothing to do, so Loki began composing and cataloguing a manuscript for his book. All he’d come up with so far was  _ the void is dark. _

***

He was falling, he was falling, and he curled up and flinched and braced for the ground, but it never came. Of course it never came, it had never come before. The sickening feeling of his stomach trying to tear out of his chest persisted, however, for a long time. Eventually he convinced his mind that there was no such thing as falling, only floating, and that he had never known anything else, and suddenly he was not moving so fast anymore. He was breathing hard from a nightmare that had been ripped away by the panic he’d realized upon waking.

The pinprick stars had grown and multiplied until they became nebulas, galaxies. The light morphed and recolored itself constantly, graduating between bright pink and blue hues. “It’s almost as if I’m falling through the cosmos somewhere,” he told himself, and his own voice was shockingly loud. He’d forgotten what it sounded like. “It’s pretty.” He licked his lips. 

“You aren’t real,” he informed the stars, and smirked wryly to himself, because he knew he’d made them up. It had been dark for a long time, and there was nothing in the world this changeable or this constant. He watched them, fascinated, primarily for a lack of anything else to do.

“There’s a snake there,” he said, after a while. “A little green snake, just slithering about on the ground. There’s no ground for her to slither on. She isn’t real.” He laughed, and it did sound a bit high and a bit mad, and he thought maybe he should be more concerned about what were now obviously hallucinations. He wondered if it was so dark and quiet that his mind had started making things up. He exhaled harshly. “I can’t think. My mind feels...dull.” He wasn’t tired, though. He’d just been sleeping. He’d slept three times since his fall from the Bifrost. Three, he thought. Maybe four. Though he wasn’t sure if that meant three days, or one day, or if there were even days anymore. He wondered if there would be anything ever again, or if he would just fall like this forever.

***

It was cold it was cold it was cold it was cold it was 

_ falling  _

he was falling

and there were two figures in the distance now, so far away Loki couldn’t make out their features. There was nobody else in the void, Loki knew, but he thought, maybe…

“Hello?” He called out. Nothing happened. “Hello!” He shouted, a little louder, but the figures didn’t seem to hear. They appeared to be speaking animatedly with each other, and Loki was taken aback when one grasped the other by the neck. He watched the smaller figure writhe and twitch as it was choked, finally falling to the ground. The larger man kicked it, rolling its lifeless form into the darkness. “What did he do that for?” Loki wondered, then laughed a little. “If they were real it would have been too dark to see them,” he reminded himself. “They are not real.”

He closed his eyes. Sleep, again, would be good. Sleeping, he didn’t have to remember where he was. He was beginning to relish dreams, in which he could see things, touch things. Here his breathing was too loud. It didn’t feel hot, or cold. He couldn’t see. Couldn’t feel, unless he touched his own body, which he found himself doing more and more frequently as time progressed. 

***

“Monster.”

Loki’s eyes snapped open. “Who’s there?” He called. Hearing a voice that wasn’t his own after what felt like so long a time was relieving and frightening all at once. In front of him sat what he could only have described as a chandelier made of bones.

“Worthless.”

Some sense of righteous fury rose in him at that. “How dare you speak to me this way! I am a prince of Asgard!”

“Not anymore,” someone hissed, directly in front of him. A woman’s voice, but he didn’t recognize it.

“They lied to you,” another voice said, deeper and masculine and from directly beside Loki as if its owner was speaking in his ear. He whipped around but it was too dark to see. He lashed out with one arm and was met with empty air. 

“Worthless!” The woman shouted.

“Nothing.” Loki whipped to the other side and felt for the deep voice’s owner, arm running through still air as it continued speaking. “And you thought  _ yourself  _ the liar.”

A new voice, a child’s voice, rose to speak over the man. “Don’t listen, it’s lying!”

“Everyone lies.” The woman hissed again. “Everyone lied.”

“Silence!” Loki commanded, fairly certain the voices belonged to nobody at all. They continued to bicker, though, and another sound rose as well. It was music, he realized, underscoring the voices. It sounded like something that could have been played at a celebration or in the banquet hall. Refined. Something Frigga would have commissioned. 

To think of Frigga still hurt too much.

“I’m still hallucinating,” he muttered. “I’m truly losing my mind.” But he took a sort of morbid fascination in the music, at least.

“It’s dark,” the voice that sounded like a young boy said. “I’m scared of the dark.”

“You should be!” The woman hissed, cruelly. 

“I’m scared of the dark. The Frost Giants come in the dark.” Loki shuddered and lashed into the darkness with a shout as if he could tear through his mind’s illusions and dispel them. “They’ll come and get me in the dark!” The child shouted, then sobbed, and Loki realized he’d proved the voice right.

The music grew louder.

***

He felt like he was losing track of his body in pieces. 

“Arm,” he told himself firmly, touching his arm.

“Shoulder,” he said, squeezing his shoulder.

“Neck,” he said, and touched his neck.

“Heart,” he insisted, and rested his hand on his pulse point to feel that somewhere in this darkness, his heart still existed, pumping blood, making him real.

“Fingers. Ten.” He clenched his fists. “Eyes, two.” He blinked, though it didn’t change anything. Any part of his body that he didn’t touch was gone. He had to touch everything, to make it real, or it would fade into the darkness with everything else. “Fingers,” he tried again, and his voice broke. “Ten. One, two, three, four, five, left hand, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, right hand.” He moved each finger as he counted it, felt each one appear and disappear. 

“Infect,” said a voice, somewhere nearby. “Question.” The music was gone, it had gone a long time ago and he missed it.

***

He was falling again. Again? Again! He’d never started. He’d never stopped. He was always falling, and the air whipped past him, and any words he spoke were torn away and tossed back up to wherever he’d come from.

“Maybe you’ll hit the ground,” said a new voice, and she sounded familiar, but not too familiar, a person he’d met in passing. “And you’ll just explode. There will be blood everywhere. And then who will clean up your mess? Not me.”

“Blue. Blue. Disillusionment,” said an old voice.

“Your skull will crack and your brains will leak out and you’ll be dead. Good riddance!”

***

It was cold. It was so, so cold. 

He opened his eyes and saw white, and it blinded him for a moment. When his eyes adjusted, he was in a wasteland of bright white nothing. Then there were rocks, craggy and black, tearing up from the freezing desert and reaching toward the abyssal clouded sky. Wind raked over the land, over his body, and he lay still, unable to move, even to shiver in the cold that leeched up through the ground into his muscles and bones and left him with a body of raw ice.

A face loomed overhead, leering and shaded, and he felt himself lifted toward it against his will. It gripped him by the neck and he was pulled up, up, and he didn’t stop where he should have run into the massive bearded man, but kept going up through that cast shadow until he was at the feet of another man, equally massive, tall and the colors of a blood sunset. That man laughed, shook him to the core, lifted one massive fist and grasped him, held him, trapped him, and began to squeeze. He shouted for him to let go, he begged and squealed and finally felt his bones begin to crack, his organs rupture and the burning fluids seep into his chest and abdomen. He couldn’t breathe and the pressure behind his eyes was growing so great he knew they would soon leap from his skull and his body couldn’t take much longer until it would pop…

The man let him go and he fell hard and fast to the ground, where he sat in a dim spotlight and watched a bluish figure across the room gnawing animalistically at its own arm, which was cuffed to a blood-smeared wall. That was him, and he wasn’t freeing himself from the bonds but consuming his own flesh, and it tasted terrible, corrupt, a miasma that had been growing in his body that he was now consuming to poison himself with cyclically. He could smell the rot.

He opened his eyes to the texture of raw flesh and a new, cutting terror. He realized he was falling, and shouted, and the bleeding meat flashed away and back and then was gone. He was in darkness again, falling toward an end that he would never meet.

He sang a ballad to himself and tried not to fall asleep, not to fall into another hellish vision, but he forgot the most important parts.

The darkness hurt him, so he fell asleep and tried not to wake up.

***

Whenever he slept he dreamed of a fresh horror. Whenever he woke up he forgot his name, each time having lost it slightly longer than the time before. He’d started screaming, trying to keep himself from falling into another nightmare. Sometimes he screamed words. Sometimes he just screamed noise. Long noise and short noise and just tried to make a sound to hear. He had no body anymore. Nobody. No body. His arms and legs were gone. There were three faces in his mind that he couldn’t put names to, and sometimes three names that he couldn’t think of a face for.

“Alone,” said a voice. 

***

“Elbow,” he shouted, and touched nothing, and forgot what he was doing. It was dark, and he was falling. Something...eyes. They couldn’t close, that was why, that was the reason for the  _ screaming.  _ The others were screaming too, there were others, but they weren’t the same, they were voices, they were darkness, they were sound. Not real, not  _ real,  _ he reminded himself, and then “elbow, elbow.” That was a word? What did that mean?  _ Eyes.  _ Don’t close them. They were slipping and he reached up and scratched at them and delighted in the fresh, raw pain. He screamed and clawed at his face and was glad to  _ feel  _ something. 

What had he been doing?

There was nothing else, and his eyes slid shut while he wasn’t looking.

***

Finally there was cold. There was white.

There was color. There was urgency.

Then there was only the darkness.

***

There was a pleasant and familiar sound through the haze, a bright and twinkling sound. There was that, and nothing else. Nothing so deep even darkness couldn’t reach, if darkness existed, if light existed. Something might fall forever in this haze and forget itself.

***

The sound had gone. Nothing was ever there anymore.

***

Pain, suddenly. Light, which hurt worse than landing. Muffled sound, muffled  _ voices,  _ a sharp pain somewhere, something hurt, nothing could stop it, something hurt, and then it all went away for a while.

***

Another time: voices. Speaking coherently, now. “It fell out of the void.” “Give it to me.” 

Pain, pain, pain, pain. 

“Asgardian.” 

“Is it?” 

“Perhaps. Perhaps something more. Its eyes are open. Is it self-aware?”

“It is like the others. Its mind has been shattered by the void.”

“Repair it.” 

“It is not possible.”

“I need this one fixed. It may prove valuable.”

***

Another time: light, dim light, but it still hurt. There was a loud noise, sharpening, building, and then pain.

“Shut up! You’re screaming!” 

The sound didn’t stop, and there was a figure in the dim light. It touched him.  _ Touched him,  _ yes, his...not arm, wrist. His wrist, and it  _ burned.  _

“You’re fine!” The figure spoke sharply, and the noise was still there, loud, as his arm...wrist...hand-- His hand was guided and it touched something and something was touched by it and that  _ hurt.  _ He flinched away, trying to escape, but his hand insisted, running up and down his face, his chest, as the figure made him touch his body and he understood that it was there. He was shaking violently, and screaming. That’s what she meant,  _ he was screaming _ . He forced himself to stop and the loud noise stopped and his whole body shook. He closed his eyes so the light wouldn’t send him into a panic and tried to get his shuddering limbs to relax.

“Open your eyes,” the voice demanded. He didn’t. Opening his eyes hurt him so he kept them shut. There was another sharp pain in his face, a shock which radiated through his nerves like ice and fire and being overwhelmed, and he realized belatedly that he had been slapped. Again, he thought, but he couldn’t remember the first time. “Open your eyes,” the voice insisted. He opened his eyes and forced himself to look. The longer he looked the less painful it was, so he just picked a dark spot and stared at it. 

“Now look at me.” He searched for the source of the voice, still having trouble putting the sound together, until his eyes rested on a face. It was blue, a blue woman, and he shouted and tried to roll away, to pull his arm away, but he was too weak, and struggled against her in vain.

“You’re  _ fine, _ ” the voice insisted. But he wasn’t fine. That was wrong, that was  _ bad,  _ he had to escape because he was in danger here. But he couldn’t move and he was exhausted. He fell still after only a few minutes of fruitless struggle. His body was as overwhelmed as his mind and was wracked with tremors even as he lay still.

“Do you know your name?” 

He didn’t. 

“What’s your name?”

He didn’t know.

“Do you know what happened to you?”

He didn’t. He knew that it should be dark and that it wasn’t. It was too loud and too bright. He thought maybe if he said these things he could go back to where he was supposed to be. He couldn’t make the words come out, though.

“What’s your name?”

“Hand,” he gasped out weakly.

“Yeah, I’m touching your hand. I need you to tell me your name.”

“Arm. Hand.” 

Then he passed out again.

***

It was light again. It was too bright. But his eyes got used to it a little faster, even though it was still incredibly uncomfortable. He looked around dazedly and tried to sit up, but he didn’t know how to move whatever part he needed to do that. He stayed awake for a little longer, but the blue woman didn’t come back.

***

“Can you wake up for me?”

Yes.

“Good job. Can you open your eyes?”

Yes.  _ Bright.  _ He always forgot. Sitting above him was another figure. A woman. Green skin this time, not blue, and that was okay.

“I need you to try to eat some food for me, okay? It’s very mild, it shouldn’t upset your stomach. It hardly tastes like anything. I’m going to help you.”

The green woman had kind eyes. She placed a hand under his...face...neck...chin, and tilted his head up and put a little bit of food in his mouth. It was warm and even though it didn’t taste like much it  _ did  _ taste and he immediately wanted it out, but she wouldn’t let him get rid of it. She held his face as he grunted indignantly and massaged his throat until he swallowed. It burned all the way into his stomach and he felt his body heave, but she still wouldn’t let go. He growled at her again but she somehow made him eat more. Just a few bites, but it was still too much. Then she gave him a little water, which he didn’t want either, but just like the food she made him take it.

“You did well,” she said. “I’m sorry I had to do that. I know it’s a lot. You’ve been all by yourself for so long, this must be a lot of stimulation.”

It was.

“Have you remembered your name?” She asked. He hadn’t. “Do you know who you are?” He didn’t. “Hold on.” He held on.

The woman picked something up and put it in front of him. It was reflective and he flinched away from the light that it shot back at him, but she held it patiently until he looked. He knew the face in the mirror was his own because it moved when he tilted his head, mimicking his actions. It was a very thin and pale face. He must be very sick, he thought. 

“Does this ring any bells?”

“It’s. Face,” he tried. That wasn’t exactly what he wanted to say.

“That’s your face,” she said. He  _ knew  _ that. He’d  _ said  _ that. “Do you know who you are or where you’re from?”

“No.” His voice sounded very soft compared to hers. He hadn’t used it properly in a long time. 

“I want to try to get you to remember,” she said. “I want you to think, okay? I’m going to say some words and see if you can remember. Asgard,” she tried.

It was familiar. But he was getting tired, and wanted to sleep.

“Bifrost,” she tried. “Odin.”

“No. Loki.” He said. Then he blinked. “Loki,” he tried again.

“Is that you?”

“Me,” he confirmed. 

“Do you remember anything else?”

“No,” he told her. His eyes slipped shut.

“I’ll be back later,” she said.

***

The next time Loki woke up he remembered more. He remembered more and it terrified and humiliated him to be so incapacitated. He screamed to make his frustration known, and the green woman showed up again. Loki wondered if the blue woman had died.

“Are you okay?”

“Release me,” Loki growled, though it wasn’t nearly as menacing as he had wanted it to be. “I am a prince of Asgard.  _ Release me.” _

“What would you do if I let you go? You’re starved and half-mad. You aren’t in a friendly part of the universe. You would die,” she said bluntly, sitting beside the bed he was lying in. It didn’t escape him that he was being kept in some kind of cell.

“Where am I?”

“Titan.”

Loki had never heard of it. “Why am I here?”

“You fell onto our planet. My father is benevolent. He wants me to make you well,” the woman said. Her hair fell in dark ringlets around her face, tinged red at the ends. 

“What is your name?”

“My name is Gamora. And you are Loki?”

“Yes. What is your father’s purpose in healing me?”

Gamora stilled, wide eyes blinking. She was young and she was nervous.  _ Liar.  _ When she spoke, she did so begrudgingly. “He can sense that you possess strong magic and great pain,” she said, each word carefully chosen. “He wishes to heal you and hopes that you will assist him in return.” 

“What does he want of me?” Loki pressed. He wasn’t very intimidating; his voice came in whispers and shouts and nothing in between.

“It is not my place to tell you. Are you hungry?” 

“Yes.”

“Then I will get you something to eat.”

***

Loki grew used to his prison, to Gamora, and to her blue sister, Nebula (who had not died). They came in turns to care for him, to speak with him, and when they left he longed desperately for them to return so he would have something to  _ do.  _ He was weak, but growing stronger, and every time he woke from a nightmare of blurry and distressing events, he would secretly long for one of them to come--for Nebula, to smack him out of his delirium and fear and remind him where he was, or for Gamora, to talk him down gently and patiently. She was his favorite of the two. Slowly, she helped him regain the use of his limbs, and he got used to touching and being touched again. The light still hurt his eyes. 

He jolted away when the door to his dim cell slammed open (it was a new ability which he greatly appreciated). Nebula’s streamlined silhouette met his tripping eyes, shoulders squared and hands fists. Intimidating. She strode across the cell toward him and dug her fingers into his shoulder, manhandling him to his unsteady feet.

“Come on, Asgardian.”

The title stirred more ire in him each time they dropped it. He  _ was  _ Asgardian. He knew this. He knew his youth and his family and his place in the cosmos. He was baffled that the frequent reminders of his heritage should  _ irritate  _ him so. But everything irritated him. Existing tried his temper.

Loki stumbled, muscles weak from disuse, but Nebula’s iron grip kept him from falling. She push-dragged him along the narrow hallway he’d staggered down so many times to the halfhearted encouragement of her sister. This was not like that. They were going somewhere with purpose--to meet this benevolent father, perhaps.

The ceilings grew higher and the rooms grander as they traveled deeper into wherever they were. The rooms were as magnificent and superfluous as Asgard’s, but not adequately lit, so their full scale fell back into a suffocating darkness which tugged at the corners of Loki’s mind as he struggled, huffing and panting, to keep up with Nebula.

Then the scale of the halls and rooms changed again. They grew smaller, more utilitarian, and he flicked through his still-sluggish mind for several moments, longer than he should have needed, before realizing they’d  _ turned around.  _ Were they returning to his cell already? What had the point of this been? Exercise?

They did not return to his room, however. They entered a bright chamber, brighter than  _ anything  _ he’d seen in near memory, and he cried out and reared back in shock before ducking his head and clamping his eyes shut. 

“Stop,” Nebula ground out, shoving him forward. His legs trembled and he tried to open his eyes only to find that they wouldn’t allow it, fighting and fluttering against the extreme white light. He was tired and sore and he wanted to go back to the darkness.

“You have fallen a long way, Asgardian.” The words were rumbled in an unfamiliar tone, resonant and deep enough to make Loki shiver. “Put him down there,” the voice ordered, and Nebula pushed him to his knees. The ground was hard and the landing made his palms throb and his teeth click. The insides of his eyelids were bright red. “Leave us, daughter.” Nebula’s footsteps retreated.

Then the stranger approached with heavy metallic footsteps.

“Look at me,” the voice ordered. Loki fought with his stubborn eyelids and managed to force one eye open, just a crack. He tilted his head so he could see his captor fully. Leaning over him was a huge, hulking creature, skin the color of a blistered corpse. His eyes were recessed, beady, but not altogether unlike an Aesir’s. 

“Who are you,” Loki demanded, aware that his voice was still a healing rasp.

“I am Thanos. And you are Loki, Prince of Asgard.” Thanos’ armor clanked as he loomed over and nudged Loki with one huge hand, forcing him to sit back. 

“How did I get here? What do you want with me?” Loki was helpless to do anything but sit on the floor with one eye half open, staring up at his huge opponent.

“I want you to pay your debt,” the giant rumbled.

“My debt,” Loki mumbled. Was this someone he should remember?

Thanos clanked around until he was behind Loki. He felt his presence, raising the hairs on the back of his neck, but the negative space where that huge form had been gave him something else to look at. The room wasn’t empty whiteness, he realized. There was a metal table here, a metal chair. Some chains. 

It didn’t look very friendly.

“I plucked you from the void. My daughters nursed you to health.” That voice was deep enough to sound loud even at a relaxed mumble. “In return, I ask only that you answer a few questions for me.”

Loki paused, thinking. Was this a spy? An invader? Did he want Asgard’s secrets?

“What is your question?”

“Where is the Aether?”

Loki tensed. “I don’t know,” he blurted immediately.  _ Secrets, certainly.  _ And all the trouble of keeping Loki alive only to ask after an artifact so well-hidden not even he knew its location.

“I find that difficult to believe,” Thanos rumbled. Loki pressed his lips together, unwilling to play along. More of that familiar fear-rage bubbled up from somewhere deep within him.

“Fine. Keep your peace, Asgardian. I will work the truth from you.” Thanos resumed his circle and stood before Loki again. Loki could open both eyes now, but refused to spare his captor the dignity of eye contact. “I will ask an easier question.” He paused, drawing Loki’s dreadful anticipation out. “How did you come to the void?”

The void--yes, darkness, falling and  _ falling  _ and the voices and the silence and the  _ loud.  _ How had he come to be there? There was anger and pain and bright light and disappointment. Despair.

“I don’t know.” He licked his lips and stared at the shiny white floor. Thanos didn’t do anything; his silence felt like something building, made Loki antsy. “I don’t remember,” he insisted.

A huge hand grasped him by the shoulder, spun him around and forced him into the metal chair. He  _ clanged  _ against it and it hurt and suddenly his arms were restrained and still the hand kept holding on, burning him like a brand, crushing,  _ crushing  _ his bones.

“Then I will  _ help  _ you remember,” his tormentor growled.

***

“Reality. Stone. Power.”

“I don’t know. I don’t  _ know!”  _ Loki sobbed. Had he known at one point? Was this one of the memories which lurked around the back of his mind, just out of reach? Thanos’ dagger sunk into his flesh like butter--his punishment for forgetting. Today it was the cutting. Yesterday the burning. And before, times he’d lost count of, there had been beating and drowning and bone-breaking--

“How many more times do you want to do this, Asgardian?” Thanos drew the knife down Loki’s side. It skidded over his ribs, bump, bump, bump, ground against bone just under his arm. 

Loki sobbed again.

The knife kept cutting, peeling away his muscle and skin. “Power. Relic. Hidden.” 

_ “Jotunheim!”  _ He shouted the first word that came to mind, desperate for anything to make the pain stop. The knife drew away from his flinching, crawling flesh and he was sure he wasn’t imagining the blood flowing over his side. Something inside him was burning. The light overhead was bright and hot.

“The Aether is on Jotunheim?” Thanos asked, voice trembling. Loki shook his head hard. He wasn’t, he  _ hadn’t been saying that,  _ that was the answer  _ what do you remember.  _ Fingers pressed into his open wound. “What. About. Jotunheim.”

“The casket,” Loki whispered, frantic. The word association had jogged some kind of memory, not of the Aether, but of something much worse, something nobody could know about,  _ tell me,  _ strangeness crawling over his skin, familiarity in the touch, something  _ not right, not  _ right. He was shuddering and shaking and a deep dreadful feeling overcame him as he  _ remembered. _

Thanos gripped his wound harder, sending searing pain along his nerves, across his chest and back and shoulder. He thought he might be dying and he was trying to think of the words that would make this  _ stop,  _ because surely this was the far greater of the two evils.

“We invaded--I tricked him, it touched me and the casket--I’m not Asgardian--” he heaved.

Thanos squeezed unbearably hard. “Where are you from?  _ Waste  _ of my time--”

“Jotunheim.” 

The pressure stopped.

“I was...I was raised on Asgard. I’m Jotun.” Rage twisted Thanos’ face at being lied to and Loki scrambled for anything he could say to mitigate the damage in the end-- “I didn’t know! I didn’t know! They  _ lied!”  _ And if he couldn’t keep the resentment from his voice, it wasn’t  _ his  _ fault. 

Thanos stood and left.

Loki lay back on the unyielding metal table. His bones hurt. Could bones hurt? They hurt when they broke, of course bones could hurt. He could hear his blood spilling over the edge of the table and landing on the floor,  _ plop-plop-plopping  _ into a little puddle he’d created. 

He was always alone after the questioning. Thanos would reach his limit, fed up with Loki’s perceived stubbornness (he didn’t know, he didn’t  _ know).  _ He would be alone with the pain and frustration until Gamora came to fetch him.

_ I’m Jotun.  _ Loki made a sound like a loud sob. Images had flooded his mind, of battle and horrifying blue flesh and those strange foreign hands, marred with twisted indecipherable  _ disgusting  _ ridges, of arguing with his father and fighting with Thor. They had  _ lied  _ to him.

“He’s not going to kill you.” 

Loki hadn’t even noticed Gamora standing in the doorway. She walked softly across the room toward him, arms full of bandages and antiseptics, and sat beside the table. He turned his head to look at her.

“If that’s what you’re afraid of, he’s not going to do it. You’re still useful to him.” She placed cool hands against his bare chest and he took a shuddering breath. This was how it always went. Thanos or Nebula would flay him, beat him, burn him, and afterward Gamora would appear. A balm for fresh wounds, a soothing and trustworthy presence. Thanos had made sure she was his only friend. “This will hurt,” she warned, before dousing his open flesh with antiseptic.

Loki screamed, the burning crawling up into his skin, invading him. It lingered, then faded to an ache, then a tingle, then numbness. Gamora began to stitch the skin together and he barely felt it.

“He spoke with me,” Gamora muttered, focusing on her work. “He believes you do know the location of the Aether. He will continue to ask until you tell him. But he wants to know more about Jotunheim.”

“I’m a monster,” Loki spat. “That is all.” 

“You said they lied to you,” Gamora continued, unflinching. Loki felt a bit of a tug where his skin hadn’t quite numbed.

“It is not your father’s concern,” Loki said shortly.

“He will make it his concern,” Gamora insisted. “If you tell me here, you’ll save yourself the pain. He could burn you again, or cut this wound back open. Now that he knows what you are, he has new ways to hurt you. And if you cease to be useful--” Loki drew in a sharp breath as he felt the needle pierce him. “He can send you back to the void.”

“No, please--” he was saying, before he could even process it. He remembered the void. Remembered the lack of himself and the abundance of everything else, the voices and the horrible visions and the nothingness which were worse than anything Thanos could do to him. 

“I want to help you,” Gamora murmured, focusing hard on her stitches. “I can help you be useful. Just tell me your story.”

Loki realized he had nothing more to lose. His not-family thought him dead. His father hated him. He’d spent an eternity in the darkness, unaware of himself, and every day with Thanos brought him a new way to experience pain.

Loki had nothing more to lose.

“Tell me your story,” Gamora repeated, gentle and healing and comforting, the only being in the universe who showed him kindness, real or not. “Let me help you. I’m all you have.”

So he did.

***

“Doesn’t it make you angry, how they lied to you?” Nebula’s voice was low, measured, as she wound her hand in Loki’s hair and jerked his head to the side. His body resisted, bound in the _thrice-damned chair._ _“They _did this to you. Without them, you wouldn’t have to put up with all this pain. You wouldn’t be here.” 

“I’m the one who let go,” Loki ground out, canting his chin away from Nebula’s face. She was close, dangerously close, and she held his head back to expose his neck. She was sharp. She would cut him. 

The lightning arrived in an instant, coursing through his body. His mind was blank save for  _ pain,  _ for the feeling of every muscle in his body contracting as that energy overwhelmed him, white hot and  _ familiar.  _

“You tell yourself that,” Nebula hissed when it stopped and he twitched, muscles limp and overwhelmed. “But can you truly trust your own mind? It’s fractured. Weak. Without us, you would still be out there. Would you truly have subjected yourself to suffering like that?”

Lightning again, coursing through him with flashes of memories. He couldn’t breathe, his chest was--no, it was Mjolnir, certainly, that’s why he couldn’t breathe. He and Thor had fought. He’d nearly succeeded, nearly--

“How do you know anything for certain?”   


He didn’t. He didn’t. He was of the darkness, from the darkness, and all that existed was this, which could hurt him so much and still be preferable. His mind was foggy. His memories were blurred. Why  _ would  _ he have brought this upon himself?

“How do you know that they didn’t cast you out, just to be rid of you?”

The pain continued.

***

It was hot. So hot. He’d stopped sweating long ago, breaths resolving themselves into little pants and every time he panted more of the heat came in, scorching him from the inside. It was worse than the lightning. It was worse than a knife. This was excruciatingly slow, mind-melting. And it was killing him. 

“Asgard cast you into the void, and I can cast you out just the same. You are nothing.” The spectre of Laufey loomed over him, peering down at him. How was he alright? He should be suffering in this heat, he was a monster just the same as Loki--

“You are angry, aren’t you?” Laufey asked. Loki didn’t have the strength to nod, but he would have. He was angry. Furious. He was weak and he could feel his faculties slipping away, the wounds from what felt like years of this training throbbing in pace with his too-fast heart. He was angry with himself for being this weak. He was angry with Thor. Thor was the  _ reason  _ he was this way, Thor the golden child, whom Loki had bungled every attempt to thwart. It was Thor and his little humans that had denied Loki his birthright. More than that, it was Thor who had taken him to Jotunheim, Thor who had cast him off the Bifrost,  _ yes,  _ and even if it hadn’t been, though of course it had, even if it hadn’t been there would have been no reason to fall if not for  _ Thor. _

“You are angry,” Laufey told him. Loki knew. Loki knew. “Are you afraid?”

He was. He was afraid. 

“Look at me!” Loki flinched as Laufey vanished. He cast around groggily, turning his head in an attempt to see anything from where he was, slumped onto the floor in a pathetic heap. Ah. That was it, Laufey was  _ dead,  _ and this was Thanos, who had plucked him from the void and returned his mind to him.

Thanos was outside the horrible hot box he’d put Loki in.

He had the power to do worse.

“Are you afraid?” The titan rumbled again, and Loki made a little moan of assent. He was afraid. Thanos would cast him into the void once again if he wasn’t useful, he  _ must  _ be useful--

His vision swam and his thoughts danced away. It was so  _ hot. _

“You know how you can fix that, don’t you?” Thanos rumbled. Loki knew, he did, what  _ was  _ it--he braced himself for a blow that didn’t come as he tried to remember--

“You can be useful.”

Yes, yes, that was it!

“I can give you a purpose. A task of the utmost value to me.”

Loki’s mind was leaching away slowly. He thought maybe his brain had just melted.

“And you will have your revenge.”

***

Loki’s steps echoed as wound through the grandiose halls of Titan, the darkness making his flesh crawl and  _ reminding him _ . He couldn’t wait to be  _ off  _ this Norns-forsaken planet. Anger and hurt and shame boiled under his skin, begging to be released, and he tamped them down. They would have their day. As he would have his. He drew himself up as proudly as his beaten body could manage and walked before his tormentor.

“Little Prince,” Thanos rumbled as he entered the throne room, and Loki shoved away the resentment he felt, dragging in deep breaths. He wouldn’t show it. He would have his day. He would have his day. He had to wait, to get out of danger, and then Thanos would pay his dues. 

Loki dipped his head in acknowledgement, the show of respect rankling at him. 

“Your day has come. Approach.” Thanos beckoned him with a curl of his fingers and Loki stepped closer. Everything ached, bone-deep, and even the days of reprieve he’d received after agreeing to Thanos’ terms, days in which he’d rested and stewed and mulled over his grievances again and again, had not been enough to heal his body.

“There is someone you must meet,” Thanos said, playing at politics. He gestured toward the shadows beside his throne, and from them emerged a monster. A twisted blue face that Loki wanted to beat until it caved in, until the thing’s insides were its outsides--

“Charmed.” Loki extended a hand and observed the creature’s twisted claw.

“You need only know him as The Other,” Thanos instructed as Loki shook the monster’s hand. “He has provided your army. You will become well-acquainted.” Then his armor creaked as he stood and Loki couldn’t help but flinch. The involuntary reaction shot rage through him and he struggled to appear calm. Thanos strode toward him, unbothered, and extended a staff.

It was golden, long and pointed at the end, and  _ Gungnir  _ nagged at the edges of Loki’s tattered thoughts. The curve of its point held a stone, bright and blue and enthralling.

This was an ancient power, Loki knew. He took it with reverence, its glow transforming his vision, its power washing over him the moment he accepted it. What a fool Thanos was, to kick a sleeping beast and then hand it his sword. 

“With this, you will be unstoppable,” Thanos’ voice resonated even at this distance. Loki bowed his head in a mockery of deference. “And now, Little Prince, you have been remade. Go forth and achieve your purpose.”

**Author's Note:**

> I tripped and 7,000 words fell out of my body
> 
> This is another Loki fic I started a YEAR ago and then thought 'hey I should finish that.' THERE'S SOME KIND OF PATTERN HERE. I was going to wait to post this at the end of the month but I have no self control WHATsoever and all work on my other fics today has felt fruitless so. This.
> 
> I really waffled over whether to include the second part because I feel like it's not as strong as the first but I also feel like the first part feels incomplete without the second so you got the ENTIRE shitshow. I know like zero things about Gamora and Nebula so they're probably wildly out of character but I needed to use them for my purposes
> 
> If you enjoyed, please sustain my mortal form with kudos. If you comment I will be ETERNALLY grateful. 
> 
> Thanks so much for reading to the end! Have a safe week.


End file.
